International Olympic Committee executive director Gilbert Felli also defended the use of a more photogenic double, comparing it to an athlete taking part in Olympic qualification and then being dropped for the main event.”
Or, having the superior bid as an Olympic hosting city, but being dropped in favour of better offers.
Asked how Yang’s parents would explain the decision to her, Felli added: “That is what it is in sport, in life.”
We now return you to coverage of synchronized diving and beach volleyball….
h/t maz2
However ET you’ve had me wondering lately if — given your apparent Chinophilism, as evidenced by many of your posts, including those which seemed to be un-sympathetic to Tibet and dismissive of the complaints of Falon Gong (sp?) — you would have been a Russiaphile in the late 20s and 30s?
It did not take Cosmo long to get to the left wing relativist argument that he knows idiots buy and that he hopes the people one level above idiots will buy if he spouts it enough. You know the one, “well China may be involved in a genocide, but so is the United States. Rumour has it that Mao “offed” more people than Hitler and Staling combined. Around 32 million some scholars say. But certainly well more than 20 million. How could any honest person compare that to the wrongful deaths for which the US admittedly responsible?
Human rights? Cosmo, a person convicted of the serial rape of children has more human rights than anyone one other than high ranking communist officials in China. A few useful idiots went to live in Russia because for a lot of lefties being a commie bootlick in Russia beat working for a living in Canada or the US. After a while the gray communist life started to rub them worse than the abrasive toilet paper that they were given to wipe their brains.
More simply for those of you who carry NDP or Liberal party cards: why do you think it is that the US has to build walls to keep people out and China, Russia and your favorite sweetheart Cuba have to build walls to keep their people in?
Mugabe, Castro, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hugo Chavez also sold a superior society to the masses. It was a tough sell so they used lying and force. Since Tiananmen Square, force has been harder to apply, but their skills in lying and deception obviously remain intact.
Dion and the Libs can’t use force so they are are left with lying and bribing. It is disgusting is that huge swathes of Ontario voters will buy what the Libs are selling. A Canadian society where no man or woman has the right to exist for his/her own sake. Where a citizens life and work does not belong to him/her but to a society that only the Libs can be trusted to create.
Meanwhile Conservatives have not killed off mindless social control programs like the HRC and Gun registry, and they continue to expand government spending to buy off Ontario and Quebec voters.
The voters in Canada want collectivism and the price we pay is to accept the same kind of lying and deception that the Chinese demonstrate.
If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.
“I prefer looking at Laurie Dhue than Lisa La Phlegm. How about you?”-John V
I am more of a Marcia Mcmillan from CTV Newsnet fan myself
“The state-run China Daily wrote that ‘songbird’ Lin was on the way to becoming a major star, and it quoted her father as saying his daughter had become an international singing sensation…”
ET, you wrote “The Chinese want to create an image of themselves as participants in the modern world. What they need from the West is an acknowledgement that they can be such…”
If China’s government considers it perfectly reasonable to maintain stability through the use of propagandistic, utter fabrications followed up by excision of the truth, why should *we* take their lies and fraudulence at face value and then say “welcome to the modern world”?
If they want to join the modern world, wouldn’t we be doing them a favour by pointing out to them that their use of pure centralized state propaganda — active lying, with proscriptions against individuals who tell the truth — on a vast, premeditated scale is anathema to the modern West?
At the point when they use such techniques in their effort to convince Westerners that they’re the glorious nation they want their citizens to think they are, shouldn’t we at least reject the validity of the message?
You could type out ten thousand pages of evidence that such centralized truth-control tactics are fundamental to their society, ET, and you can explain how in China individuals are fodder for the larger collectivist ambitions, and that it’s simply the Chinese way, but such finely detailed, accurate description is not any kind of argument that their approach can comfortably co-exist with other nations in the modern developed world.
Should we take propaganda and lies for their intended purposes, or should we point out that we see such a false front for what it is?
I realize I’m coming late to the debate but . . . I have to agree with ET’s basic point about the Chinese collective attitude.
As one married to a Chinese for several years, and a vitriolically anti-communist one at that, I can attest that there is this cultural tradition of subordinating the freedom of the individual to the welfare/success/image of the group. “Face” is still hugely important. It comes out in the oddest ways and explains generalized support for measures which we, westerners, would view as oppressive or churlish. So I don’t think the little girl who sang behind the scenes is going to be as broken up as we think she should be.
Second, many of them look way younger than westerners at a given age. That’s not to say that the Red Chinese wouldn’t cheat to get under-aged athletes into the Olympics if it suited their purpose. I’ve no doubt they would. But equally, I wouldn’t just assume that because they look younger than we’d expect that they necessarily are younger.
I’m not sure about ET, but I’m not using the cultural relativism argument as an excuse for their actions. Rather, it should be used as a lense offering a different perspective to explain those actions.
EyesWideShut:
“More simply for those of you who carry NDP or Liberal party cards: why do you think it is that the US has to build walls to keep people out and China, Russia and your favorite sweetheart Cuba have to build walls to keep their people in?”
Right, that’s why they don’t give their people passports, or let their students study abroad, or let people fly on planes….not. I do see your point of view during the cold war, Iron Curtain and all that, and I agree. Nowadays though? Not overly.
me no dhimmi – I think you misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that a collectivist society is an ideal infrastructure for the modern world. I am not supporting China’s collectivism as the ‘way to go in the future’.
In a world that requires rapid adaptation, constant innovation – such a world requires the unique perspective of individualism. The individual is isolate as a ‘viewer’ and ‘experiencer’ – and so, is more open to dissent, dififerent experiences and a different output. So, China will and is, most certainly moving more and more to promoting individualism. You’ll see that in its competitive capitalism and its competitive nature in the Olympics -and in science.
However, I’ve been pointing out that the entire history of China has been based around the very deep philosophy that the individual is a part of a group. That’s in the ancient philosophers, whom I mentioned above (Confucius, Chuang tze, Mo tze etc). If you are interested, my first university degree is in Chinese – and I’ve read those in the original. But in addition, a lot of my academic work has been on societal structures and I’m well aware of the difference between and history of the two types: the collective and the individual.
As Dr Dave points out, ‘face’ is extremely important, just as the ‘stiff upper lip’ was a characteristic of the British.
With regard to Tibet – my opinion is that I don’t know enough; that the situation is far more complex than the simplistic binarism of Tibet alone or Tibet within China (and even the Dalai Lama says he doesn’t want full separation; heh, sounds like Quebec). As for falun gong, I maintain that it’s a cult. And no, Russia is quite different from China.
lookout – you totally fail to understand what it’s like living as an integral member of a society that is structured as a collective. You insist that there is only one structure – and you are wrong. No, this isn’t relativism for relativism posits that BOTH or ALL types of different structures can co-exist. No, they can’t. Only one can exist in one time/space.
But, in different sizes of population, different types of economies, the collective OR the individual will be ‘right’.
What you fail to understand is that a society structured around the collective subsumes the individual, and the individual accepts and WANTS this mode of existence. Again, this is NOT relativism, it is NOT multiculturalism.
Phantom – this collectivism isn’t imposed ‘from above’ any more than ‘individualism and competition’ is ‘imposed from above.
OMMAG – your ‘arguments’ are rather weak. Sneering or ‘bah to you’ isn’t an argument. Plus, I suspect that you really don’t know much about China.
EBD – First, don’t mistake communism for the 5,000 year tradition of collectivism in China. Second, if you think that Canadians aren’t ‘brainwashed’ into their own set of beliefs – I wonder where you’ve been. That includes our notions of ourselves as ‘tolerant, kindly, peacekeepers’ vs the Americans who are ‘rogues, imperialists, capitalist thugs’ and so on.
You define truth and lies without any understanding of the issues – eg, the two little girls who sang and who appeared, were both members of the same group and therefore, to the Chinese girls, they are both valid representatives of that group. The Western focus on the individual says that only ONE of the two can be a valid representative, and can only represent herself. Not the group. The people who live in a group mentality simply wouldn’t understand your limited and what they would consider ‘narrow’ point of view.
Your insistence that we in the West never lie, never engage in propaganda – heh – all our years of Chretien, for example – were without lies or propaganda? I remember Chretien’s answer to Mad Cow Disease; he ordered a beef dinner for everyone and had pictures of him eating. His reaction to SARS – was to have the taxpayer foot the bill for shipping his cabinet to Toronto for a meeting there – with lots of photos of happy, healthy cabinet ministers. His reaction to theft? The statement – ‘what’s a few million to save the country’ (he meant the Liberal party..but..never mind the lie)..
Oh come on, ET. The state media arm lied about the identity, and imminent career, of the “singer”. If, in the Chinese mind you know so well, the “two” are a *valid* representation of the group, why would the Chinese government lie about it? If such identity-swapping is considered perfectly valid in their culture, as you suggest, and is part of a long glorious tradition, why would the government hide it?
“a society structured around the collective subsumes the individual, and the individual accepts and WANTS this mode of existence”
That would be you Ontario.
barjebus
I did not say they (commies) don’t give a limited number of people passports, or let their students study abroad, or let people fly on planes.” Even during the cold war Russia let a few people out. If they were ballet dancers with high public exposure they were fairly well guarded. If they were average schmucks with family members in Russia they had a certain degree of soft tissue leverage. If you want a true comparision between civil liberties in communist countries compared to civil liberties in the US or Canada please go to a communist country and give them the grief you know you could in an anti-government protest in Canada, the US, Great Britain, Australia or any other of the satanic countires of the west. [Please note that your out of Canada medical coverage does not cover beatings at such protests.]If you make it back we can pick up this thread.
ET, please stop putting words in my mouth, pulling out of a hat arguments I did not make, and twisting the arguments I did make entirely out of shape to suit your purposes. These are not the hallmarks of fair play.
1) I did NOT suggest that “ . . . that there is only one structure.”
2) I was NOT talking about relativism in relation to China: it was in relation to YOU and what I believe is your preposterous suggestion that actions can only be judged within the context of the moral code held by the perpetrators.
You’re the one who said, “As for your comparison with the Liberals – that’s an invalid comparison. The Liberal Party is operating in an individualist societal system, and when their individuals lie and cheat – that’s wrong.” Read the corollary I provided.
3) I also perfectly understand that “a society structured around the collective subsumes the individual, and the individual accepts and WANTS this mode of existence”. Nowhere did I even hint that this isn’t true. (I might not like such a structure, but I did not deny its existence.)
4) You say, “ . . . you totally fail to understand what it’s like living as an integral member of a society that is structured as a collective.” How would you know? I wasn’t discussing that.
I certainly understand that the Chinese live differently from us and have a different perspective (duh)—apparently, a perspective that routinely accepts lying and cheating and vast cover ups.
I suggested that just because “this is the way they do things” doesn’t make it OK, as you seemed to suggest. That was my thesis , ET., which you’ve chosen to completely overlook. (“Nice work if you can get it . . . ”)
5) When you say, “What you fail to understand is Again, this is NOT relativism, it is NOT multiculturalism”, you are speaking quite outside the context in which I used those words. I was NOT talking about China: check it out.
As you so easily tell people that they are “wrong” and “fail to understand” and that their arguments are “invalid”—a definite downer in many of your usually informative posts—I think you might consider others’ posts with more objectivity, e.g., by reading, processing accurately, and responding fairly to what they’re actually saying.
So why are people so surprised that this has happened in China’s handling of the Games?
This is the same country that covered up the starvation of at least 30 million of its own people in the 1960s, due to the miscalculation by the Mao govt and its Great Leap Forward.
People and individuals and ‘freedom’ mean exactly nothing to totalitarian societies.
Hey if the totalitarian state says you are free then you are free, even if you do have to give all your grain to the govt sponsored enterprise and let them divvy it up.
No, wait that’s Canada!
Aw damn, here I was just gonna start throwing sticks and stones at the dreaded Chinese commies and Canada’s own beloved CWB buggers me up.
ET said: “Phantom – this collectivism isn’t imposed ‘from above’ any more than ‘individualism and competition’ is ‘imposed from above.”
ET, I think we are arguing around each other’s arguments. Of course its imposed, its a totalitarian state. Anybody with ideas of bucking the trend gets their head handed to them. You bet the singing kid’s mum didn’t complain, probably didn’t even THINK of complaining. Do you complain to the Inquisition about the sanitation of their dungeons? Nyet!
Is this a good thing we should understand and tolerate? Or is it something we should resist and eradicate wherever we find it?
I’ll leave you with this little thought. What do we remember from the 1936 Olympics? Hitler refusing to shake hands with Jesse Owens. What are we going to remember from the 2008 Olympics? Lip syncing. Unless they pull something really spectacularly heinous.
phantom – modern China doesn’t operate the totalitarian way that you think it does.
There’s a lot of investment from and to the West going on; there’s a lot of collaborative scientific research going on – The China in your mind is 20-25 years ago.
Actually, China isn’t totalitarian anymore; it’s certainly one-party, but even its communism is dissolving, as capitalist businesses emerge, as private property develops.
So, your image that the parents didn’t complain because they feared the state is suspect; they didn’t complain because it never occurred to them there was anything to complain about.
And it’s not up to ‘us’, to ‘eradicate’ it. We aren’t the moral overseers of the world. And there is absolutely no comparison of China today with Hitler’s Germany. Again, I suggest you don’t know what modern China is all about.
lookout – my apologies if I failed to understand what you wrote. I read your ‘relativism’ in one way.
As for the Chinese perspective of ‘routinely accepting lying, cheating’..etc…again, what YOU define as lying, cheating..is NOT the case within the group perspective. YOU define one person lipsyncing and another person singing – as ‘lying, cheating’. They don’t. You are viewing the event through YOUR societal structure – but they don’t live that way.
And because YOU don’t accept their perspective, a perspective based around the notion of collectivism, doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. YOU think it’s wrong. But that’s within your mode of life. There isn’t ONE way to structure a society. There are two basic ways: group and individual.
In the West, the whole notion of individual authorship, patents and individual ownership, developed in the 13th-16th centuries. Before that, it didn’t exist. And in China, it didn’t exist. It’s only now emerging. As has been previously pointed out – China has private property rights for its citizens. Canada doesn’t.
Citius, Altius, Milli Vanillius
Good one maz2 / Kate…
“I’ll leave you with this little thought. What do we remember from the 1936 Olympics? Hitler refusing to shake hands with Jesse Owens.”-Phantom
Actually a lot of people dont know this but Hitler did shake hands on the first day of the Olympics with winners. By day two he was advised not to do it anymore as it was not normaly done by the leader of a host country, so he stopped.
The day Owens won his first medal Hitler did not shake the hand of even a German who won an event an hour earlier.
This was classic propaganda on our side.
Please dont take this as support for Hitler just mentioning it is all.
China has private property rights for its citizens. Canada doesn’t.
Thanks for the interesting comments ET, but really, this is taking it a bit over the top eh?
Yeah, the charter is silent on property rights but the facts on the ground couldn’t possibly support this preposterous claim! Moreover, the silence was intended to give government action freer reign; but this doesn’t mean that Canadians don’t have property rights which are vastly superior to whatever regmine China has in place.
A while back you said, with respect to our HRCs, that China has nothing on us. But we don’t jail and murder dissidents ET.
To argue that China is not totalitarian is another of those semantical tricks. Sure, it no longer monitors and controls private life as suffocatingly as during the Mao era, but it’s still totalitarian in that you cannot express certain opinions wihtout being on the receiving end of violence. As someone said, you’re pretty free if you keep your political nose clean, but if you don’t you’ll get it cut off. Only in a totalitarian state is there a danger of having your nose cut off for expressing opinions the regime doesn’t approve of.
In the end it comes down to theater with a plot. That’s the real human experience when it comes to anything of a subliminal fight, which athletics are to an extent. As different as the East from West scenario culturally we all strive for the same basics to survive with the same emotions. Competition being one of the largest drives. It generates to a large extent our hierarchy’s with Status associated with them in an individualist or collectivist society. After saying that I think the Olympics are way past there best date due in this model now used. To shady with like the Nobel prizes, compromised by politics or social fads so much its become a racket not a competition. I think the athletes deserve something better than the latest back drop to the World drama’s of the day. It should stay in Greece where excellence of body & mind where first applauded in this fashion. Its the only filter from politics I can see as well major fraud. To be in them we could all chip in for the requisite facilities, as well the upkeep.
JMO
ET, apology accepted. But . . . I made it very clear that it was less the lipsynching than the self-serving cover-up that bothered me. I don’t care where one lives or what one’s perspective is, diliberately deceiving others for personal gain is not a good thing to do. It doesn’t inspire trust or good will.
So, China’s traditional behaviours don’t inspire trust and good will? I think that’s a negative.
P.S. ET, you wrote to The Phantom, “So, your image that the parents didn’t complain because they feared the state is suspect; they didn’t complain because it never occurred to them there was anything to complain about.”
I disagree. A friend of mine has just returned from a month in China. The unwritten rule is that NO controversial or political issues will be discussed, and certainly NO negative comments about the government.
I don’t know what you’re talking about here.
“Only in a totalitarian state is there a danger of having your nose cut off for expressing opinions the regime doesn’t approve of.”
I don’t know Me NO; there are a few fingers and toes I can do without if it will save me $100 000.
ET you are ruining these threads on China, mainly because you have nothing sensible to say.
Can you tell us why you have such a vested interest in defending the Chinese no matter what they do?
You seem quite down on Canada too. Perhaps you can explain the underlying reason for that too?
“You seem quite down on Canada too. Perhaps you can explain the underlying reason for that too?”
China and Canada are similar countries in this regard. Both countries operate on the ideal that no man or woman has the right to exist for his/her own sake. That a citizens life and work does not belong to him/her but to society.
No accident property rights are not enshrined in the Canadian constitution. It allows our government free reign to confiscate private property if they deem it necessary for the greater good Canada.
Uh – who cares?
I guess apparently lots of you…
Me, it matters none. Along with all the other results. It’s just sports, folks.
Well MMM, I guess you choose to fiddle while Rome burns. (That’s figurative language: you may look it up.)
If you think we’re just talking sports here, you’ve missed the point.
Whatever . . .
me no dhimmi – you can’t express many opinions in Canada without being on the receiving end of both violence (not state but personal) and our state sanctioned HRCs.
lookout – my data base is not from one person spending a month in China, but from both my years of study of societal infrastructures – and from Chinese colleagues and also from people, Canadians, who have lived and worked there for years.
It’s a social structure in transition, and a lot of its laws and rules are ignored; a lot of decisions and actions are local and arbitrary (this of course happens everywhere in the world)and your view of China as a giant totalitarian topdown repressive regime – just isn’t accurate anymore.
No, me no dhimmi, the norm in China is not to ‘have your nose cut off’ for expressing objectionable opinions. But the norm in Canada is that you cannot say anything that is ‘likely to offend’ someone. And we have a heavy bureaucracy and a lot of govt money vested in that role.
I also don’t agree, lookout, that it was a ‘cover-up’ re the lipsyncing. As I said, in a group perspective, there isn’t any cover-up, since both girls were members of the one group. Which girl performed which action is not relevant in such a perspective.
SDA r-eads MSM? SDA l-eads MSM?
“In the People’s Republic of Milli Vanilli, this sort of phoniness goes on all the time.”
…-
“China: a nation run by phonies
Jonathan Kay, National Post”
http://tinyurl.com/5hpq2b